ARC Wins Three Regional Communications Awards

The Greater Richmond ARC's "What is ARC?" awareness campaign ended 2006 by receiving honors in three regional PR and advertising competitions. The campaign won honors respectively in the Richmond Ad Club's "Richmond Show" for Public Service Print in an Outdoor campaign, the Public Relations Society of America's 2006 "Virginia Public Relations Awards" for for creative tactics, and the International Association of Business Communicators' "Best in Virginia" awards for Economic, Social and Environmental Development communications.

The campaign has brought this deserving Richmond organization to the forefront of the Greater Richmond nonprofit community. It has also significantly increased annual giving and inquiries for its services two years in a row. For more information, please visit www.RichmondARC.org.

Campaign credits:
Agency: Neathawk Dubuque & Packett / The Greater Richmond ARC
Copywriters - Kevin Grimsdale and Doug Payne
Art Director - Mo Davis, Neathawk Dubuque & Packett
Creative Director - Kevin Grimsdale, Neathawk Dubuque & Packett

2006 ARC Annual Report

I teamed up with River City Consulting to design and produce the 2006 annual report for the Greater Richmond ARC (Association for Retarded Citizens). Using black-and-white and photos of ARC clients shot by national award-winning photographers, including Thomas A. Daniel, the layout makes use of clean, sophisticated design and typography. To download a PDF of the annual report, visit the Greater Richmond ARC and click the download PDF link on the left-hand margin of the home page.

Camp Baker identity

Camp Baker, a year-round day, respite and summer camp for children and adults with developmental disabilities, needed a fun yet professional identity as the camp began to grow significantly in the early 2000s. The 22-acre camp, located near the Pocahontas State Park in Chesterfield County, Virginia, also had to tie itself back into its parent organization, the Greater Richmond ARC. The design I chose was clean, simple and leveraged familiar camping icons: a profile of a picnic table "A" and a triangular pine tree "A." The design was presented to senior staff and board members and was enthusiastically accepted by Camp Baker towards the end of the 2007 summer camp season.

Rocketts Landing Sprints '07

The fourth annual Rocketts Landing Sprints poster art was designed in the style of 1920s European regatta posters using a simple three-color scheme. In addition to the period dress of the figures, I chose to add the Virginia Boat Club "V.B.C." red pennant and original Virginia state capitol building to make the artwork relevant to Richmond, home of the Virginia Boat Club since 1876. I have been associated with the VBC for three years and also have an early family connection to Rocketts Landing: in 1781 my gggggg-grandfather, Thomas Payne, and his men helped haul seized British munitions from Rocketts Landing up Shockoe Hill after Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown.

Virginia Boat Club

Originally founded in 1876, the Virginia Boat Club descends from one of the earliest rowing clubs in the United States. The Olympic Rowing Club, originally located on the James River at Second Street by the Kanawha Canal in downtown Richmond, later moved to Mayo Island and became the Virginia Boat Club. Defunct for a number of years in the 20th Century, the club was reorganized in 1986.

For a while, the Club used a collegiate "crossed oars" logo with an athletic block letter "V" in the center. The logo was attractive, but it was sometimes mistaken for the University of Virginia Crew logo. The new identity needed to reflect the Club's history and present a timeless look that worked well on apparel, signage and stationery. The primary VBC logo that was designed retains the classic crossed oars and employs a Copperplate typeface that was used frequently in the 19th Century, along with a complementary support typeface. A secondary logo, an understated "V.B.C." pennant on an oar, serves to support the Club’s identity on stationery, cocktail napkins and apparel.